A Means to an End
by God's Demonic Messenger
Summary: Garrus goes on a vacation with his family that doesn't quite turn out the way he hoped while Shepard lays down the new law of the galaxy: Never come within sight of a geth with a Widow! Read and Review
1. Chapter 1

_**/First of all, let me say that I always play as Paragade as possible. What does that mean? It means I have all the allies in the game (excluding maybe Cerberus if TIM wants to be immature), I've killed most enemies (including nonessential ones like the merc on Thanes recruitment and the Merc on Garrus' recruitment) but have overall played like Robin Hood. Nice to the good, ruthless to the bad. And the background I will be using is Colonist War Hero.**_

_**If for some reason you disagree with a choice that I use in this story, please don't waste effort expressing that. It is the nature of the beast.**_

_**Also, since turian culture isn't explained enough for me to extrapolate curses and such, I will be using human curse words where appropriate.**_

_**Finally, HUGE spoiler warning for everything in the ME universe up to this point. That includes DLC, books, and games. I don't have the comics though, so you don't have to worry about that part.**_

_**And now for something completely different!**_

"Shepard, I don't think it's a good idea," Garrus said as he and Shepard walked to the Mess Hall from the Main Battery.

"Garrus, of all the people on this ship, you need a vacation more than anybody," Shepard said in response. Upon seeing the look of incredulity Garrus shot him, he continued, "Except maybe the abducted crew." Shepard tried unsuccessfully to hold back a smile. He knew who Garrus meant.

"Shepard, I haven't spoken to my father in over three years, and the last time didn't end so well," Garrus said as he took his seat at the dining table. Mess Sergeant Gardner had prepared a huge feast for the active combat crew still aboard the Normandy. There were delicacies from Turian, Quarian, Salarian, Drell, Krogan, and Human cookbooks. He had made sure to find ways to sterilize the food for Tali.

"I told you what he was like, he couldn't accept my application for Spectre training and after I left, he told me just how disappointed he was," Garrus said. The look in his eye gave Shepard the impression that it hadn't been as calm a conversation as Garrus implied.

"Garrus, I'm telling you, if you go back as a son concerned for his mother, he'll take you back," Shepard replied.

"It just isn't that simple," he replied evasively as Gardner began to set up plates for the remaining combat crew. Zaeed and Samara had left little more than a month after the successful destruction of the Collector base and impromptu rescue of the Normandy's ordinary crew. Samara had killed her daughter and had left Shepard's service with the promise that she would come if he called.

After Gardner had finished arranging the relevant silverware for each major species present, he stood at the end of the table and looked over the 10 heroes. Around the table, the rest of the crew gathered. Gardner cleared his throat and said, "Now I'm not one for speeches bu-"

"Hey Shepard, can you make sure they save some of that veal for me, I'm starving!" Joker said over the intercom.

"Joker, I know damn well you have a video feed of the Mess Hall right now. So if you really want your veal, we better be docked at the Nos Astra spaceport in 3 hours," Shepard said aggressively in response.

"Jeez, I just wanted you to save my share, no need to get touchy. I'll be bring-"

"Joker, would you shut the fuck up? I did a hell of a lot more than your crippled ass and I'm hungry!" Jack interjected, but if Shepard wasn't imagining things, he thought he saw her give a quick glance to Gardner before continuing to stare intently at her plate. Her personality had taken an interesting and promising turn after sparing Aresh and defeating the Collectors. She seemed less angry and more tired, but there was still a long way to go.

"Ahem, as I was saying, Commander Shepard," Gardner said, raising one arm towards Shepard like a salesman advertising his wares, "You and your brave crew did the impossible. You saved us and you saved all of humanity again. We owe you everything, thank you."

"As a small token of our gratitude, me and the crew have scrounged up enough money to make you and your team the best meal this side of heaven. Enjoy." As Gardner walked towards the stove to bring the many dishes he had prepared to the table. With the assembled crew and Shepard's team applauding, he stopped and turned back and said, "Oh, and I made sure to wash my hands extra good before making this stuff."

Shepard could tell from the looks on his team's faces that they were thinking much the same thing he was; way too much intel. He tried to push the slightly revolting thoughts out of his head and dug into the food that Gardner had brought to the table. It was exceptional, every last bite.

After setting aside the fattiest piece of veal for Joker Shepard said to the crew, "Thank you all for this. I've been feeling this way, and I'm sure my team has been too, that we don't get enough gratitude from the people we save. With the council denying everything I say and Cerberus trying to toss us aside, it means a lot to get a reaction like this. Thank you so much, we all really needed this I think," Shepard said with a quick glance at Garrus. Another round of applause from the crew followed before Shepard continued, "Speaking of things we need, I've decided that our situation is squared away for now with our mutual friend," a quick glance at Garrus and Tali, "and several powerful factions ironing themselves out in our favor that now is a perfect time for some R&R."

With that the crew quickly devolved into cries of joy, whooping, and clapping. Once it had died down some, Shepard said, "You will all receive vacation money since Cerberus stopped paying you two weeks ago, and Joker will be getting you to your destination of choice before he gets his leave."

"WHAT? EDI can fly the ship, why do I need to be here?" Joker yelled over the intercom.

"Because EDI can't get clearance from the air traffic control officers," Shepard said.

"But, but, come on Shepard that's just-"

"Stow it Joker, you're getting the same amount of credits as the active personnel. 100,000 credits, so if you don't want to get 50,000 credits like the rest of the crew, I better not hear another word from you," Shepard snapped. He listened for a moment before being satisfied that Joker got the message then continued, "Now, for the active personnel, I have two limits. Grunt, you're going with Thane and are to try and not start a war."

"Understood battlemaster," Grunt said gruffly.

"Jack, you're going with Mordin, and are to try and not get into trouble," Shepard said.

"Aw come on Shepard, why the hell do need a damn babysitter?" Jack asked indignantly.

"He's not a babysitter, he's there to get you out of trouble if you get in it. Face it Jack, you're a high profile criminal, there's no telling how many law enforcement agencies have you on their most wanted list. Mordin is there to help you get out of these sorts of problems. The rest is up to you," Shepard responded. After seeing the look on Jack's face change from anger and indignation to confusion and then finally pride Shepard had to hide a small smile.

"Well team, now is a perfect time to figure out where you want to go. We have two hours before we reach Illium and we can stay docked as long as we need to. Crew dismissed," Shepard said before downing the rest of his whiskey. He set the glass lightly back on the table and watched as the crew dispersed to their various places.

Shepard thought about his white lie. Squared away may not have been completely accurate. There were people he needed to call, deals and threats to be made, understandings to be reached. As the old saying went, "There ain't no rest for the Wicked" and Shepard left the table thinking about how there wasn't any rest for the damned either.


	2. Chapter 2

"Garrus, call them. Video chat, not just audio," Shepard insisted. Most of the crew had already been dropped off at their chosen destinations, many on the human colonies of Eden Prime, Terra Nova, and Elysium and some on the Citadel. His team was scattered across the galaxy. Jack and Mordin were on Illium, Grunt and Thane were on the Citadel, Tali was visiting the Migrant Fleet, Kasumi was laying low on Aeia, and Jacob and Miranda had gone to Omega in preparation for Shepard's visit. Legion had opted to stay on the Normandy with him to avoid disrupting the others' good times.

"Shepard, I can't. They'll start asking questions and most of it's classified, I just-" Garrus began.

"Bullshit Garrus. We don't even have a real chain of command on this ship. There's no beaurocracy that controls this ship, it's just us. There is no classified. You tell them everything you think you can without destabilizing the mission. I don't care what they know so long as it doesn't interfere with stopping the Reapers," Shepard said. "Now call them."

"Shepard I… Fine. I'll call them. But what about you? What are you doing?" Garrus asked.

"Garrus, I've had two years of down time, I don't need any more for a while," Shepard responded.

"Yeah but Shepard you were dead," Garrus pointed out.

"You know what they say, you sleep when you're dead. Well I had two years of that already, I'll be fine," Shepard said a little irritably, knowing where this conversation was going. He knew Garrus wouldn't accept a vacation while Shepard was working, which was precisely the problem.

"Shepard, how can you ask me to go on vacation while you man the Normandy alone?" Garrus asked.

"I won't be alone and I wasn't asking. Call them," Shepard said.

Garrus looked Shepard in the eye for a while, the roiling storm of his thoughts almost visible as he fought between his loyalty to Shepard and his dislike for following stupid orders when the galaxy was at stake. Shepard could see the moment Garrus made a decision and waited in triumph as he said, "Alright Shepard, fine, I'll call them. But you better call us back if you need us."

"I will Garrus, now get on with it so you can spend some time with your family," Shepard said. There was a bittersweet taste to the triumph he felt. He knew that if things went the way he hoped they would, he'd be seeing a lot less of Garrus. He watched quietly as Garrus entered the address for his home on Palaven and turned and left as he heard the line open. The last thing he heard as he left the Main Battery was a sharp intake of breath. _I guess there are some emotions that are truly universal in expression,_ Shepard thought to himself as he walked past the dining table towards the elevator.

There were so many things he still needed to do. Thankfully a very nice tip from his old friend Anderson gave him hope for killing two birds with one stone. Aria should be pleased to know who killed her daughter.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey Solana, how are things," Garrus asked awkwardly after his sister's reaction to his appearance.

"How are things? How are things? You don't video chat with us for three years and call us out of the blue just to ask how are things? What the hell happened to your face? Who have you been with? What happened?" Solana answered.

"Well, it's complicated. I… well I've been busy… doing things… and well, it's hard to explain," Garrus said, struggling to figure out what he should tell them. Finally he decided that whatever he decided to tell them, it shouldn't be over the extranet. "Listen Sol, I've been thinking. A couple months back you asked me to come back to Palaven and I think I want to take you up on that. I also have tickets for a Baria Frontiers Cruise if you and mom and dad are interested."

At first it seemed that Sol couldn't respond. Her shock was evident in the way her mandibles kept flexing in and out. She couldn't comprehend how her brother could do an about face in just over three months and even offer to take the family on vacation. Finally she said, "Yeah, alright, I'll let mom and dad know you're coming. What was that about a cruise?"

"I'll explain it when I get there. See you in a few days," Garrus responded, severing the connection. Immediately he regretted cutting it off so suddenly because it sent the wrong signal. He just couldn't handle another awkward second with his sister staring at his facial scarring.

_Hopefully it will get better_, he thought to himself as he started packing up his things. He didn't have much anymore; most of his possessions had been left at the Citadel when he left for Omega. His rifles and armor plus some credits and his cleaning kits. He had only one change of clothes, and he decided he was going to need some more if he was visiting Palaven. He also made a mental note to grab some of the spare Phalanx heavy pistols before he left.

"EDI, before we stop at Palaven, could we stop at Illium? I need some more clothes," Garrus said.

"Of course Garrus. Shepard left a package on the dining table for you, he said you'd need it," EDI responded.

"Ok, thank you EDI," Garrus said as he walked out towards the Mess Hall. Upon seeing the small package Garrus wondered what Shepard could have left him that he didn't want to give him earlier. His curiosity was hardly satiated once he had opened the package to find nothing more than a note with a long number and an address on it.

"EDI, do you have any idea-"

"It is the number of a bank account. The address is for the bank on Illium," EDI responded.

"Did all of the crew get these?" asked Garrus, trying to remember whether or not he had seen a package like this given to any of the other team members.

"No, most crew members were given credit chits with the contents of their allowances on them. Operative Lawson and Lieutenant Taylor were the only ones to receive a similar package," EDI said, anticipating Garrus' next question.

"Is Shepard still here? Maybe I should ask him," Garrus said as he walked towards the elevator.

"Commander Shepard is currently indisposed, and we will be arriving at Illium within a few minutes," EDI said.

"Oh, ok then, I'll just check it out myself," Garrus said his curiosity growing as he walked back towards the Main Battery.

Before he had reached the end of the table, Legion stepped out of the medical bay. "Vakarian, Lieutenant. We would like a word."

"Yes, what is it Legion?" Garrus asked, the strangeness of the package still dominating his thoughts. The only thing he could come up with as an explanation for the separate method of delivery was to keep the others in the dark, but that didn't feel right.

"We wondered if you could assist us with a problem. We seem to be lacking LADAR silhouette data on Turian warships," Legion said.

Garrus, still not fully comfortable with Legion being on board and not locked up, despite his exemplary actions on the Collector base, said in response, "Well, it has been a long time since I was in the Turian military, and I don't have access to current LADAR data. Sorry."

"Acknowledged. We had hoped you might be able to provide us with this data, Shepard Commander has been unable to acquire it for some time," Legion said.

"Huh, that's strange. Liara should have been able to provide that sort of thing in no time," Garrus speculated. It really should have been easy to gain that sort of information from Liara now that she was the Shadow Broker.

"Shepard Commander said that Liara still needed time to adjust. We do not understand, she should have adjusted within a solar day," Legion said. His head flaps flared as he spoke.

"I think you don't understand what being the Shadow Broker really means. Essentially, one person is in charge of managing and organizing quantities of data best suited for an AI. Since you aren't a part of galactic society, you wouldn't understand the huge amount of information that gets bought and traded by the Shadow Broker," Garrus explained. "I can completely understand why it would take a while to adjust because organics just don't have the processing power that AIs do. Besides, this sounds like a fairly low priority thing. We don't anticipate the need for the geth to recognize our allies for a while yet. Give it time; you'll get it when you need it."

"Acknowledged, thank you for explaining the situation," Legion said. He then turned around and walked back into the medical bay.

Garrus watched him through the window of the medical bay. _Sometimes_, he thought, _Legion seemed almost alive. But then he comes and asks questions that seem totally obvious and I realize just how different he is._ He then felt the motion dampeners kick in and knew that they had arrived at Illium.

"EDI, ETA on docking at the Nos Astra spaceport?" Garrus asked.

"Ten minutes. Shepard is waiting for you in the CIC," EDI replied.

"Thanks EDI," Garrus said as he carried his bag of armor and weapons into the elevator. He was wearing his change of clothes and had his credit chit in his pocket.

After the elevator had arrived at the CIC and grabbing the extra pistols from the armory, Garrus walked over to Shepard who was standing staring at the Galaxy Map. "Shepard, can you explain what that bank account is for?" he asked.

"It's a budget. You, Miranda, and Jacob needed more than an allowance because you had other things to take care of. They had a mission and you have your family. It will be replenished periodically. Use it wisely," Shepard replied. "Also, you are going to need to find a ride from Illium to Palaven, I can't bring the Normandy into Turian space without drawing attention. Sorry."

"Oh, alright then. Thanks for the heads up," Garrus said. He stood there awkwardly, wanting to say more about how he should stay here and help Shepard and how ordering him to go on vacation was like ordering him to like the Elcor play Hamlet but he didn't. Instead he started walking towards the airlock and when he arrived he stood there, staring at the door, waiting for the Normandy to dock.

Finally, it did, and he took one last look at Shepard at the Galaxy Map before he stepped into the airlock and out into the Illium sun.


	4. Chapter 4

"Budget my scaly metal ass, this is a fortune," Garrus said under his breath after seeing the amount of credits in the account Shepard gave him. Garrus had no idea how Shepard thought he could spend that kind of money on four people in one vacation. 100,000 credits had seemed like a lot, but there were 10 million credits in this account and Shepard actually thought he would need to replenish it? And where did this stuff even come from anyway? You don't get this kind of money from looting the corpses of mercs.

Included in the bank account were codes and a note explaining that one code granted Spectre clearance. Garrus was glad of this as he had been worried how he would transport his armor and weapons through customs. The other had a cryptic message that Garrus didn't bother trying to decipher.

He used an infinitesimally small portion of the money in the account to buy new clothes and the tickets for the trip from Illium to Palaven. He also purchased several packages of the new heatsinks and adapters that would allow the sinks to dissipate heat on their own. Just in case.

The trip from Illium to Palaven was uneventful to say the least yet he felt more nervous than when they were attacking the Collector base. Enemies he could deal with, but he just didn't know what to do with family.

The entire trip there he stressed over what he was going to say, how much he was going to tell them, and whether or not his father would actually accept him back like Shepard said. The more he thought about that, the less likely it seemed. He should have asked to talk to dad when he called but he was too afraid of his reaction. Now he wouldn't have the distance to lessen the blow.

It was with these thoughts that he fell asleep, dreaming fitfully before he noticed the deceleration as the craft exited FTL travel and he woke up. Out his window he could see the surface of Palaven and he felt when the small shuttle's motion dampeners turned on to compensate for the gravity well of the planet.

He watched with growing anxiety as the shuttle pulled into a docking rig and a worker manned the docking clamps. He kept worrying about how his father would react and thinking about everything his father had said. Had his father been right? Where had his quest for justice led him?

Omega, a criminal's haven, with a team full of shady people playing vigilante. Not only that, but all but one of those shady people was now dead, and nothing was really gained from it. The criminals on Omega barely flinched after Shepard got him out. Had his father been right about doing things the right way?

_No,_ he reasoned, _he can't have been. We stopped Saren by defying the Council, if we hadn't done that then the Galaxy would be overrun by Reapers and all life as we know it would be dead within a few centuries._

_But if I had stayed at the Citadel then Sidonis couldn't have betrayed me and I wouldn't have lost all those men,_ he thought. _If I had just listened to dad none of that would have happened_.

His conflicted thoughts were cut short as the captain of their shuttle announced over the intercom that the passengers, all 10 of them, could depart. The small shuttle was filled with the sounds of passengers gathering their things, unbuckling from their chairs, and standing. One by one the shuttle emptied, and Garrus was left alone to collect his bag from the secure compartment at the back.

He took his things and slowly made his way out the airlock and down the ramp into the Palaven sun. The searing heat shocked him somewhat. It had been so long since he had been in the Palaven sun that he had forgotten its intensity. The fact that all turians had metals in their skin to protect against it was proof enough of its unique strength.

_That's why Sol reacted so strongly to my facial scarring_, he thought. _She probably realized that it takes a more powerful heat source to cause that level of damage. It's unfortunate that it's so obvious._

From this train of thought he finally noticed the stares he was getting from many of the turian civilians in the transport depot. He tried to ignore them but the knowledge that that was the reaction he would get from his family set him on edge.

"Garrus? What happened to you?" his mother's voice said from ahead of him.

_Speak of the Devil_, he thought. _Such a strange expression_.

Out loud he said, "Hi mom, how are you feeling?"

He could see his father at the info terminal. _Probably looking up what shuttle I was on. I wonder how they knew I would be arriving today,_ he thought.

"Your father talked to some friends of his and found out that you left from Illium. You know how he likes to stay connected," his mother said as if reading his thoughts.

"Oh, yeah, of course. He did always like staying in the know," Garrus replied. He felt tense. It got worse as his father began walking towards him, a scowl on his face. "Where's Sol?" He asked to try and distract himself from what was coming.

"She couldn't make it. Since you failed to communicate with us where you were coming from or when you would get here, she made other plans," his father responded harshly.

_So much for that idea,_ Garrus thought to himself.

Out loud he said, "Sorry dad, I wasn't sure myself when I called. It's been hectic."

"Well, since you didn't even bother to find out, I'll tell you. Your mother has recently undergone new treatment and she seems to be doing better. Your sister has been busy with her district here, and I've been trying to figure out what it is you've been up to," his father said. "I figured it would be something stupid and dangerous, and I was right. What the hell happened to your face?"

"Can I please explain it some other time, right now I just want to get home and tell you about the cruise," Garrus said, trying to change the subject given the public nature of their surroundings. There were several people staring in their direction and he didn't want to get into it there.

Every Turian served in the military and his father was no different. Adamant as he was about finding out what his son was up to, he could tell when someone knew something dangerous. The way Garrus was looking at the other people in the terminal while he spoke made him think that maybe now wasn't the best time. Grudgingly he said, "Alright. Our car is over here."

With that he led his son and wife towards the rental car parked in a parking garage. They took off towards their home in the suburbs.

"Now what was this about a cruise?" Garrus' mother asked as she eased into the sitting room chair. Garrus thought she looked tired and a little bit ill, but he was hopeful his actions in helping the Helos Medical Institute get STG clearance to allow them to offer government subsidized treatment was helping. He hoped that Dr. Jelith Kieron had kept his promise.

"Well, I was thinking that with you doing better we could go on a small trip and see some interesting places," Garrus responded. "The cruise visits most major hub worlds and stops at several asari colonies with resorts."

"And how much did these tickets cost?" his father asked pointedly from his standing position against the wall. Garrus could tell he wasn't going to take anything he said on faith. He looked to Sol who was sitting across from his mother for support, but she wouldn't look him in the eye. _Yeah, this is going to go great,_ Garrus thought to himself.

"It didn't cost anything, I won them in a lottery on Illium," Garrus lied. Hopefully his father would latch on to how stupid it was to sign anything on Illium, even a lottery ticket, and wouldn't dig any further.

"Hmm," was all his father had to say in response.

"Garrus, we don't have any money. Most of our savings and paychecks went towards mom's earlier treatments. Our insurance wouldn't cover it," Sol said from her chair.

"I've got enough for all of us. My last operation paid out nicely, you guys don't have to worry about money," Garrus said, hoping beyond hope that his family would just accept it and move on, but before he even finished speaking, he knew it was futile.

"And where exactly was this mission? What was it that you were doing that 'paid out nicely'?" His father asked forcefully. Garrus could tell he had been waiting for an opportunity to ask this question.

He thought long and hard before answering. Finally he said, "I was on a mission with a Spectre. Most of it's classified." He just couldn't bring himself to tell them the whole truth, no matter what Shepard said.

"You mean you were on a mission with the traitor Shepard, fighting alongside terrorists," his father said scathingly. The look on his face made it clear that this was the real reason his father had even brought him home. There was no understanding, no benefit of the doubt; his father thought he was another Saren. This realization made Garrus' blood boil and his skin crawl.

Quietly, in almost a whisper, he said, "Commander Shepard was reinstated as a Spectre after the council learned from him that he was working with Cerberus. They were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt to prove his intentions, and I'll be damned if an ex-C-Sec Captain is going to second guess them."

"I was there the entire time Shepard was working with Cerberus, I know that their relationship was barely tenable. A necessary evil, nothing more," He continued. "The first chance he got Shepard ditched Cerberus, proving that he wasn't a terrorist. Hell, he sabotaged them more than once. So if you want to imply that I'm a traitor, you better be ready to substantiate it with more than rumors."

His father stood silent, his mother and sister avoiding looking at either of them. A long awkward silence was finally broken by his mother as she said, "So, this cruise stops at Illium right?"

Garrus, recognizing her attempt to salvage the situation, looked at her gratefully and said, "Yes, Illium, the Citadel, and several asari colonies. There is even a short stop at the human colonies of Elysium and Eden Prime."

"Why Elysium and Eden Prime?" Sol asked. "I mean, I heard that they're beautiful, but that seems a bit strange." His father looked at him suspiciously.

"The Alliance paid Baria Frontiers to include them in the circuit. Something about advertising humanities two most famous colonies in order to bolster support for colonization," Garrus replied, which was the truth. After the abductions of the colonies in the terminus systems, colonial agencies were having trouble meeting quotas. There was too much fear that the colonies weren't safe. The Alliance needed to use the two symbols of colonial protection to try and convince people to volunteer.

He looked at his father. He seemed less suspicious. _Must have heard about that from his pals at C-Sec,_ Garrus thought.

"Well, I think it's a great idea. I need to relax after all these tests and treatments," his mother said. With that, she got up slowly and tottered slightly. His father tried to help her but she gave him a look that stayed his hands. After regaining her balance, she walked out of the room and down the hall to the right towards the master bedroom.

"Your mother isn't as well as she looks," his father said quietly after walking towards him from his place on the wall. "The treatments seem to be helping, but she has a long way to go." He looked at Garrus with suspicion again, but there was a slight hint of compassion. Or was that anger?

_Maybe he knows about what I did,_ Garrus thought, before deciding that he couldn't. The STG operated on a whole other classified level than C-Sec. There was no way his father could have heard about the calls he asked Mordin to make.

"That's one reason why I wanted to take you all on this vacation. She needs some time away from the tests and treatments," Garrus lied. He thought about how much he wished he wasn't here.

"I think it's a good idea. Mom has been getting exhausted by the procedures. So many of them are experimental, and she can only handle so much at a time," Sol said, getting up from here chair. "how long is this cruise?"

"One month, including travel time. Pack everything you think you will want, there's no limit on space. The tickets are for luxury suites," he responded. He had no idea how Shepard had paid for these tickets, they must have cost more than the contents of his account, which reminded him that he had no idea where Shepard even got the contents his account. Maybe from Liara.

"Go ahead and pack, I need to check the extranet for a new omnitool," Garrus told them as he walked towards the office. He didn't look back to see whether his father was leaving, but he knew that he would. If mom was willing to go, then his dad would have to follow.


	5. Chapter 5

"EDI, have you received a response from the communications equipment?" Shepard asked from his spot at the Galaxy Map.

"Yes Shepard. Equipment is installed and fully functioning," EDI responded.

"Good. Bring us in to dock," Shepard said. He needed to play this carefully. If Aria felt threatened she would refuse and that was unacceptable.

He worked his way down the CIC to the airlock. His weapons were loaded and his armor charged. Any visit to Omega was a hazard. Gang wars sprung up randomly and without warning, and he was going alone. Jacob and Miranda were both in deep cover and Legion was his only support.

He took a breath of the filtered Normandy air before opening the door of the airlock to the filthy smells of refuse, decay, and excrement that soon flooded his lungs. He walked into the docking area and made his way to the door of Afterlife.

The Krogan bouncer took one look at him as he walked forward and opened the door absentmindedly. Several of the would-be patrons in line shouted at his back as he walked through the entryway. Their cries of indignation were cut off as the door closed and the music from inside the club drowned them out.

Shepard walked casually through the small corridor with the neon flames flickering up the walls. He walked with a purpose and without haste because he was in his element. The dangerous nature of Afterlife put him at ease. In the end, his profession was one of violence and he was very good at it. Without the danger he would feel out of place, a corpse in a field of flowers.

He made his way past the check-in counter without so much as a glance at the Krogan at the door or the Asari behind the counter. His eyes were for the loft overlooking the bar and the asari dancers where Aria T'Loak held dominion over this hell hole of a station.

He could see her just barely as he walked past the bar and the dancers. As he ascended the steps to her loft he quickly radioed Legion.

"Are you in position?" He asked.

"Affirmative. Aria T'loak is conversing with a member of the Talons," Legion responded.

"Good. Miranda and Jacob's intel was right then," Shepard said. He took the last step of the stairs slowly, getting a feel for the situation at the top. He could see a member of the Talons on his hands and knees with a gun pointed at the back of his head. This turian stared at the ground, trying to distance his head from the barrel of the gun. As Shepard neared, his translator began to pick up the conversation. Several more Talons comprised of humans and turians stood behind him and his captor while Aria's bodyguards pointed their weapons at them, preventing them from interfering.

"Now, I seem to remember having a discussion with you a few months ago about trafficking drugs and not giving me my cut," Aria said to the Talon on his hands and knees. "And I seem to remember being very clear about the consequences if you tried it again." She stared coldly down at the turian with her arms folded. Despite her words, Shepard could tell she wasn't very upset. She knew she was going to get what she wanted and she knew there was nothing they could do about it.

"Please, I'm sorry! You'll get your share, I swear!" the turian on his knees said, blood tricking from a gash on his face.

"That's what you said last time. Why should I believe you?" Aria said, her position in front of him never swaying, never shifting. Her eyes looked down on him coldly and without pity.

Shepard looked again at the group of Talons being sequestered by Aria's guards. They were bunched up in a group around a single human and their armor was thin in comparison to Aria's guards'. Shepard had an idea what was going to happen. Everything was going according to plan.

"We'll give you 20 percent, right off the top! That's the best we can do!" the Talon on his knees said.

"You are in no place to bargain," Aria said in response. "You'll give me exactly what I want and not a penny less." Her confidence was borderline arrogance as she began to smile down at him. The Talon on the ground tensed and Aria assumed it was because he knew there was no way to escape.

But she was wrong. The group of sequestered Talons attacked their captors and pushed them back. Despite the fact that they were shot multiple times by them, the Talons clung to the weapons of their captors.

The human in the center chose this split second to launch a biotic attack at the guard pointing his weapon at the turian on the ground, shoving him into Aria with enough force to send her into the couch.

The turian on the ground pulled from his armor a 15cm serrated blade and was inches from Aria's throat when his head exploded. By the time the other guards in the loft had brought their weapons to bear the turian was already venting his blood all over the floor. This all happened within the space of 5 seconds and Shepard stood impressed with the Talons' coordination and audacity.

Aria's guards ran to Aria to help but she shoved them aside and stood on her own. She looked around at the corpses and then her eyes fell on Shepard and she understood. The guard who had been launched into her lay sprawled on the ground of the lower floor. The guards on the second floor then began pointing their weapons down at the patrons and shouting orders, trying to figure out who had killed the turian.

"Shut up! You're wasting your time. I have a feeling Shepard can explain what just happened," Aria said, never taking her cold and calculating eyes off of him. Finally, her guards realized his presence and began pointing their weapons at him.

"You're right, I can. But not here and not in front of your men. Some secrets are only for a select few," Shepard responded, staring unflinchingly back at Aria.

"No. You'll tell me what you want right here," Aria responded. "Where's the shooter? How did you know what would happen? Why did you help?"

"The shooter was on the third level. I knew because of connections I won't divulge here and I helped because you needed it," Shepard explained.

He watched Aria as she calculated the possibility that he was lying. He could see in her eyes the conflict between her desire to know what he knew and the probability that he could be threatened. Her jaw gave away her intentions, clenching ever so slightly at the thought of trying to get the information violently and saw her dismiss it by the subtle lift of her chin.

Likewise he could sense her analyzing his own body language for signs of treachery. He knew she wouldn't find any but was slightly amused by her reaction. Her nostrils flared ever so slightly, almost invisible if you weren't looking for it, as she realized she couldn't learn anything from it.

Finally she said, "Fine. You wanna talk in private, we'll talk in private."

Shepard smiled slightly because he knew how much it bothered her that she couldn't gain anything from him the way she was usually did. He also smiled because the fact that she agreed at all meant that his position with her was where he wanted it to be. At least for now.

Aria led the way to a private room at the back of the club. Her desire to be in control and to not show fear overrode her caution, despite the fact that she just survived an assassination attempt. As he had predicted, it was her communications room they stopped at. Dimly lit and with just one couch, it was the type of room that saw very little traffic other than Aria herself which meant it was the perfect place to talk.

_Everything according to plan, _Shepard thought.

Aria motioned for her guards to wait outside and then stepped into the gloom of the communications room. The holopad in the center glowed lightly. Shepard followed her inside, glancing to his right and left as he passed the guards. They glared at him viciously. Shepard smiled.

"Now, you are going to tell me exactly what you know and how you know it," Aria commanded from her seat at the couch.

"Not just yet. First I have something of a peace offering. It has recently come to my attention that you lost someone close to you," Shepard said slyly. Despite the fact that they were alone, he knew from Miranda and Jacob that this room had four cameras, one in every top corner, and a dozen microphones.

Aria's eyes narrowed slightly. Shepard knew she got the hint.

"Someone close to me? Hardly," Aria responded, but her tough demeanor was only a front. She was disturbed that he had made the connection between Liselle and herself and knew that she had been bested. She had been living with enemies too long to not recognize when someone else's plan had succeeded. She desperately wanted to know how Shepard knew that Liselle was her daughter but she couldn't admit that she was with the recording equipment on.

Aria casually deactivated the surveillance equipment. She knew Shepard's reputation well enough to understand that he wasn't her enemy. Most of Shepard's enemies ended up meeting early and obvious deaths. The fact that a Collector hadn't been seen once in the months after Shepard entered the Omega 4 Relay was proof enough of his methods. If he hadn't already pulled a gun on her then he wasn't going to.

"Alright Shepard, what do you really want? Does this have something to do with the Reapers?" Aria said in a last ditch attempt to gain the upper hand.

"Yes it does. But first, my offering. I understand you lost a daughter," Shepard said, noting the very slight deflation of Aria's shoulders as her last hope that he didn't know was extinguished, "and I wanted to tell you I can help you get her killer."

"Her killer was Grayson and I hear your friend Anderson killed him already," Aria said. She had done further research into Grayson and all the evidence pointed to him; his red sand addiction, his xenophobia, and his suspicious disappearance.

"It wasn't Grayson. If you had bothered to question Anderson and Kahlee Sanders they could have told you exactly who killed him," Shepard said flatly.

"Oh, and who is that?" Aria asked.

"Kai Leng," Shepard said. He noted how Aria tensed, saw her recall that she had had Leng in this very room with her once before.

Aria remembered the way she saw him tense as he walked through the crowds of aliens on the Afterlife dance floor. She remembered how easy it was to see his disgust for the other species and how despite his surroundings he still walked with a predator's gait. Suddenly she saw how obvious it should have been.

"Alright, fine," she said at last, "But why do I need your help to catch him?"

Because I know exactly where he is and exactly how to counter his training," Shepard said in response. "He's N7, like me. Our training may have been separated by a few decades but I guarantee I can predict his every move. If you go after him with a team of thugs, he'll get away and you'll lose him. You would have to understand how he thinks, how he prepares for things, how he evades."

"Why would you help me?" Aria asked again. No one did anyone a favor without having a motive. She could tell he wanted something, and the only connection she could make was to the Reapers.

She didn't believe in them but Shepard clearly did. He was smart, he outwitted her, he was dedicated, and he was stable. He didn't act like a man out of his mind and she remembered that an STG operative and a Justicar both followed him through the Omega 4 Relay.

_Which_ _was another thing. How had he survived the Omega 4 Relay when thousands of ships before him didn't? What did he know that no one else did?_ The only answer she could come up with was his belief in these Reapers. They seemed to her like a myth born of ignorance, a face for a species' nameless destruction, nothing more.

Shepard stood quietly, not answering the question. He wanted her to figure it out on her own because then she would believe it as if it were her own idea.

She remembered hearing reports of Saren Arterius' Dreadnought and how it had plowed straight through the Citadel fleet. She had seen videos from the warships in orbit of its destructive power. She also remembered hearing Shepard's theory and then later the official theory that the ship had been a geth creation.

Thinking back, she thought that the other geth warships had been pushovers compared to this Sovereign, which seemed strange. _Why would the geth ships have been weaker if Sovereign was a geth creation? _They wouldn't have been was the obvious answer. No military would create a single warship that surpassed the others so completely and not upgrade the rest. It made poor tactical sense to rely on a single warship, no matter how powerful, to win the battle.

And Shepard had said that there were thousands more in Dark Space during the one time the Council let him speak to the press. There was no way Shepard could fight off all of that technological might with one frigate. He wanted allies, and he came to her. It had taken her less than thirty seconds to come to this conclusion.

Shepard saw the moment that Aria understood. He stood quietly as she said, "You want me to help you fight the Reapers. Do you honestly believe that these things exist?"

"I don't believe, I know. I've spoken with one, used two prothean beacons to view the Protheans' final warning about them, and I have hard evidence from the Collector base about their construction," Shepard said.

"So then why do you care about my daughter?" Aria asked. "Why do you care about this Kai Leng?"

"Besides the fact that he gives every N7 a bad name and that he's a xenophobe?" Shepard asked. "Because he's The Illusive Man's best assassin, and The Illusive Man has already proven that he can't be trusted with any kind of power. Grayson was more than cybernetically implanted, he had been turned into a Reaper Avatar. The Reapers controlled him from dark space through, as I understand it, quantum entanglement. The Illusive Man has shown that he's a threat to all my plans. This Grayson Avatar could have undone everything I've worked for.

"My friend Anderson already ensured that The Illusive Man no longer had the influence he used to, but an assassin like Kai Leng can be more powerful than any amount of credits or number of staff," Shepard continued. "An assassin like Leng could start a war with a single shot. I am not going to allow him to live."

"So then why tell me? Why go to all this trouble just to tell me you're going to kill him?" Aria asked. "Was it because you wanted me to believe you about the Reapers?"

"That's part of it. I also wanted to let you in on a secret. The Shadow Broker works for me now, and as my ally, you would have access to that resource at next to nothing," Shepard said. "I also wanted to tell you that I had a secure communications platform installed right here in this room."

"Is that right? And how is this more secure than my quantumly encrypted communications equipment?" Aria asked.

"It's more secure because it's completely untraceable and impossible to tap externally. We humans call it a quantum entanglement communicator. It's instantaneous and it doesn't rely on the extranet," Shepard explained.

"Alright, and who can I call with this new communicator?" Aria didn't like being ignorant and she didn't like someone else dictating terms but Shepard had the upper hand and if he was telling the truth about the Shadow Broker then this could be a very beneficial partnership. She was willing to forgive him his dictation in return for what he promised.

She hadn't forgotten about Leng however and she was curious as to how Shepard would deal with him but his next sentence all but drowned that out.

"Myself aboard the Normandy and the Shadow Broker directly," Shepard said. At the second person mentioned Aria's eyebrow raised and Shepard could see that she was itching to test it. "Feel free contact him at any time, but make sure you actually need information. He really doesn't like his time to be wasted by meaningless questions." Shepard made a point to refer to the Shadow Broker as 'he.' Aria may be an ally, but she wasn't a friend. Not yet.

"I'll be bringing Leng back here for you. I'm sure you can come up with a reason to torture him," Shepard said as he turned towards the door. When he had reached it, he looked back to see Aria tapping into the console that had risen from the side of the couch. He opened the door and it was shut by her after he had walked though it.

She really liked having the last word.


	6. Chapter 6

"EDI, are the probes in place?" Shepard asked over the intercom. He was preparing his weapons and armor alongside Miranda and Jacob.

"Yes Shepard. The probes are in place and stealth systems are engaged," EDI responded. "Legion is standing by in the hangar bay."

"Good. Our target is still out in the open?" Shepard asked. This was going to be an interesting operation. Bekenstein wasn't exactly an agricultural planet, there were many buildings that Kai Leng could take cover in.

"He is, but he is advancing towards the apartment complex," EDI replied.

"Alright, we better get down there. Is our new shuttle fully functional?" Shepard asked.

Legion responded from the hangar bay, "Affirmative Shepard Commander. Active cloaking and stealth technology operating correctly."

"Good. We don't want him to know we're coming," Shepard said as he motioned for Miranda and Jacob to follow him towards the new shuttle. It looked very different from the Kodiak they had used during the Collector mission. It was more like one of the wasp shaped Geth warships he had seen when he stopped Saren. _I suppose that's the consequence of having the geth develop a shuttle for you, _Shepard thought to himself as he, Miranda, and Jacob strapped in to the seats.

"Alright you two, you know what to do. Don't get sloppy or we'll have to do this the easy way," Shepard said to them.

"We won't Shepard. He should recognize us," Miranda said.

"Yeah, we were two of the more known Cerberus operatives. He'll recognize us," Jacob affirmed.

"Good," Shepard said as the door to the hangar bay opened and the shuttle made its way out into the blackness of space. The shuttle was invisible to the naked eye as well as heat sensors. It was invisible to even the archaic forms of detection from the 20th on up.

The shuttle took the three humans through Bekenstein's upper atmosphere and down towards the growing metropolis that was the planet's center of commerce. A bustling city filled with humans too rich to care about the galaxy beyond their bloated bank accounts and posh suites. The perfect place for a well funded assassin to hide. To these people, if you had enough credits to rent an apartment, they didn't care who you were.

The shuttle made its way silently to the market district. Shepard wanted his team to get set up in their positions before Leng came this way on his afternoon run. They touched down in an abandoned car garage and got out of the shuttle.

"Alright, make your way to your positions and stay out of sight until it's time," Shepard told the others. He then turned around and headed up the stairs to his lookout point.

The Normandy had been in orbit for over a week, its probes gathering weather data and monitoring activity below. They had found Leng shortly after they had arrived living in an apartment on the lower floors of the largest apartment building, directly west of the market district.

They had monitored Leng's every action either through their probes or discrete scouting trips conducted by Shepard himself. The knew that every afternoon Leng returned to his apartment to change clothes and then left again for a 10 km run through the market district and into the financial district in the center of the city. There was a park directly north of the market district.

Legion and EDI had tapped his communications to be sure that he didn't get a message that forced him to deviate from his schedule.

Leng was still a military man. He ran his life on a routine that he operated like clockwork. Specific times for specific tasks, patterns of behavior that Shepard could trace back to his days in boot camp. Once they have been ground in with the heel of the drill instructor's boot, these things never went away, which made Shepard's job a hell of a lot easier.

His lookout point was at the tenth floor of the car garage. He had had Legion and EDI develop a way to upgrade his cloaking to allow for longer periods of invisibility and he was currently cloaked. Miranda and Jacob would be stationed within the market district discretely.

A few minutes later EDI contacted him over his intercom, "Commander, Leng has left his apartment and is currently en route to Ms. Lawson's position."

"Good. Miranda, get going," Shepard said.

"On my way," Miranda replied. Shepard could see her through his Widow's sniper scope moving into the crowd from her hiding position. Leng was still some distance away, jogging her way. His limp from when Anderson shot him was noticeable, and he seemed to be grimacing slightly.

It was a good five minutes before he reached Miranda heading East and Shepard could see the moment he noticed her. Miranda was performing flawlessly; acting as though she were pretending to be interested in the wares of the streetside stores, making feigned glances over her shoulder.

Leng took the bait just as Shepard expected him to. When faced with going up against a threat like Shepard unarmed and recovering from an injury, Leng's first instinct would be get away as silently as possible. Shepard knew that Leng would assume that Shepard's whole team was here since The Illusive Man would have no reason to send Leng a message about his crew being on R&R. The Illusive Man was too secretive, too secluded to risk breaking Leng's cover by sending him a message.

They had also searched his entire console for any messages from The Illusive Man just to be safe and quantum entanglement communicators were too expensive and too impractical for him to build one for Leng here.

Leng made a subtle deviation in his direction so that he took a back alley to his left 100 meters away from Miranda, exactly as planned.

"Jacob, he's coming your way," Shepard said into his visor mic.

"Understood, moving into position," Jacob said in response.

"EDI, give me a feed," Shepard said, configuring his visor to receive and display video. A fraction of a second later, Shepard saw Lang through his visor and watched as Leng noticed Jacob and took a right turn into a side street heading straight for the park.

Shepard put his sniper rifle on his back and descended the stairs two at a time. He had 10 floors and 500 meters to cover before Leng reached the park. Jacob would be tailing Leng and Miranda would flank Leng from the North to make sure he went into the park.

Shepard's feed on Leng was still live as he jogged east to come into the park from the South entrance while Leng entered from the East entrance. He watched as Leng looked over his shoulder and saw Jacob 200 meters back. Shepard knew that Leng would realize that he was being funneled into the park by the time he saw the entrance, but there was heavy mechanized construction on either side of the street that led to it so he would be forced to either deal with Jacob or try and lose him in the park.

The park itself was wooded, but the branches of the trees were bare from Bekenstein's fall season. The trunks themselves were thick so they would give Leng the illusion of safety. There were any number of places Shepard could have led Leng but because of the construction this was the best option.

Shepard slowed down as he reached the gates of the south entrance. He could see that Leng was still a hundred meters from the east entrance which gave him plenty of time to get into position.

He headed for the southeast corner of the park. Miranda would force Leng south when she would show herself coming from the north entrance. Once he was in a position of maximum view with minimum visibility, he waited.

And he didn't have to wait long. Leng came hobbling through the trees and down a hill to Shepard's 12 o'clock at a distance of about 50 meters. He moved out of cover and fired his Phalanx hand cannon at Leng's feet to get his attention.

Leng stumbled as Shepard's shot ricocheted into his calf before regaining his balance. He stopped and stared as Shepard walked towards him.

"Kai Leng, ex-N7 operative for the Alliance military. Distinguished service record during the First Contact War and later imprisoned for killing a Krogan in a bar fight," Shepard said casually as he came to a stop in front of Leng. "There are a lot of Alliance soldiers that would kill to be able to bring you in Leng, but instead you got me."

"What do you want from me Shepard? Are you here to settle a score with me over Anderson?" Leng asked in defiance.

"Ha! As if I'd spend all the effort to track you down just to settle a grudge!" Shepard laughed. "Besides, Anderson settled his own grudge if I'm not mistaken. How're the legs?"

"Screw you Shepard! If it's not that then why're you here?" Leng asked. Shepard could tell he was calculating his chances of overpowering him and getting away.

"Well _Mr._ Leng," Shepard said, "You helped The Illusive Man conduct an experiment that nearly undermined all my efforts to stop the Reapers. On top of that, you killed the daughter of a very influential person and I'm trying to kill three birds with one stone." Shepard smirked at Leng's confused face.

"That experiment was meant to help stop the Reapers and it was Anderson who set Grayson loose," Leng said, still trying to decide if he could take Shepard.

"Any experiment that risks the return of the Reapers before I'm prepared to fight them is wrong," Shepard said pointedly. "The consequence of failure for that experiment was too high and you and The Illusive Man were fools to think you could contain it.

"But that's only part of the reason I'm here. Aria T'Loak wasn't very happy when she saw her daughter's corpse naked in Grayson's apartment with her throat slit. She'll be quite pleased when I bring you to her," Shepard said, trying to goad Leng with the threat of torture and the idea that he was working for an alien.

Leng glared daggers at Shepard before responding, "You're just that asari bitch's lackey! You do her dirty work just like Grayson! Her daughter had it coming!"

"Speaking of lackeys, I wonder if you've heard from The Illusive Man recently. Has he kept his best assassin well informed?" Shepard said, not even bothering to explain himself. He could see it in Leng's eyes; his lack of intel on Shepard had crossed his mind. He could see Leng's scowl slowly contort into barely veiled anger. It wouldn't be long now. Shepard was careful to stand in a certain way.

"It doesn't matter. What are you going to do Shepard, shoot me?" Leng asked, his body tensing as he waited for the answer.

"Most likely," Shepard responded casually, as if he were commenting on the chance that the sun would rise in the morning. He smiled at Leng and watched as Leng's survival instincts and rage combined and made him attempt to grab Shepard for a knee to the stomach. He reached out his hands…

And then his right hand wasn't there any more and there was a small crater in the ground at his feet. A fraction of a second later his left wasn't either. Leng's cry of pain rent the air and caused the few birds in the trees to take flight.

Shepard waited for Leng to stop screaming before kneeling down next to him and saying, "You see Leng, there's something you don't seem to understand." He watched as Leng cradled the stumps that used to be hands to his stomach. "The Reapers are a threat to all life in the Galaxy and as such every man woman and child has the right to defend themselves. You're stuck in your xenophobia. You killed Liselle for no other reason but that she was there and she wasn't human."

"Allies can help in surprising ways. Take for instance your hands," Shepard said, strapping a tourniquet around each of Leng's forearms. "My teammate Legion, an advanced geth mobile platform, EDI, and a modified Widow anti-material rifle are responsible for the loss of your hands. They are currently in orbit, and a network of probes fed them weather data for every level of the atmosphere.

"Being AI, all they had to do was calculate the trajectory of the round using the weather data and gravity information and wait for you to act. No human or organic could have made those shots, not in a million years," Shepard said as he stood. "Each species has their unique talents and in the fight against the Reapers we are going to need every bit of help we can get."

He paused briefly before continuing, ignoring the labored breathing and quiet curses from the man at his feet, "This isn't about humanity. This is about all life everywhere. You are a threat to the stability of my operations because you can't understand this. For that, you will die. I'm taking you to Aria as a gesture of good will. Alliances need to be forged between the Council species and the terminus species."

"EDI, send the shuttle to pick us up at the secondary LZ. Miranda, Jacob, meet me there," Shepard said over his radio. He then bent down and applied a thin layer of medigel to Leng's arms. Just enough to stop the bleeding but not enough to get him back on his feet. He had lost a sufficient amount of blood to keep him sedated while Shepard hoisted him up and dragged him to the waiting shuttle.

_Today was a good day, _Shepard thought to himself as he strapped Leng into a seat in the shuttle. The operation was a success, his idea for orbital support was proven, and the shuttle prototype worked flawlessly. A hundred of these shuttles with enough geth programs to do the calculations could provide devastating support to a battlefield.

So all in all, a good day.


	7. Chapter 7

"Mom, I'm telling you, the stores here have everything. This cruise ship has a full size mall in the center with everything you could want," Garrus said. So far the vacation had gone well all things considered. His mother seemed to be enjoying the new places; it had been so long since she was in the military traveling across the galaxy.

It had already been three weeks since they left the Citadel. The cruise had visited several asari colonies between there and Illium as well as both Elysium and Eden Prime. For Garrus, these two colonies were the most interesting. They were where Shepard had risen in the ranks, first with his defense of Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz and later where he learned about Saren. There had even been a memorial built on Elysium, Garrus thought a bit prematurely. They were now travelling through Council space towards Illium for their final leg of the journey.

"I know but I don't think they'll have it. Asari paring knives are so rare outside of Illium and so expensive. Are you sure you can afford it?" His mother asked.

"Yes mom, I'm sure," Garrus replied. Shepard had been right. Despite the things he had bought his family over the past three weeks Garrus' account had never been far from its starting point of 10 million and a week ago it had been refilled. _Has to be Liara, _he thought**. **His father had been suspicious when he bought his mother that salarian vase. It had been on auction for 250,000 credits and he had bought it as a surprise for his mother who loved art from other species. In hind sight maybe not such a great idea.

"Well alright. I'll go down to the shopping center and take a look," His mother said. She got up from her seat at the couch and moved to the door of their suite. The furnishings of their four suites were more lavish than anything Garrus had ever been in. Platinum trim along all the furniture, silk cushions imported from Earth, four-poster beds with velvet drapes of amber, mahogany, indigo, and royal blue respectively with gold sewn into them. The restrooms were filled with gold and the video screen was an entire 3x5 meter wall.

_These rooms would be an absolute pleasure to fight through_, Garrus thought to himself for the hundredth time on this trip. The décor had initially surprised him and made his family extremely suspicious but they eventually got used to it and began to enjoy it. Each of them had their own room. Whenever his family asked about how he had won the tickets he told them, "It was a heavy risk, but the prize was worth it."

Garrus went back to his own room. The theme was what humans called mahogany. The cushions of the furniture were dyed a red brown color and the drapes of the four poster bed were gilded with gold around the edge of the mahogany fabric. He took a seat in the couch in front of the video screen and turned on the news. He couldn't quite relax knowing that Shepard was still working and he kept trying to hear about what he was up to on the news.

There wasn't much. There had apparently been an incident on Bekenstein. Blood was found in a park but no body was recovered. There were still reports of strange ships that looked like Rachni ships and the turians and humans were still trying to recover diplomatically from Anderson's raid on Cerberus. He switched the news back off, disappointed and frustrated that he was out of the loop. He leaned back in his seat and began to nod off when there was a knock on his door.

"Come in," he said. His pistol was hidden in his shirt within easy reach of his hand. His armor and other weapons were stowed in the closet, ready to be put on if they needed to be.

But it was only Sol. "Dinner in 30. Mom found a paring knife down at the stores, she's preparing some real food in her room," she said. The thing about luxury cruise ships was that you couldn't get a decent sized meal. Yeah the food was good, but there was too little of it for any of them to be satisfied.

"Alright, I'll be there," Garrus replied. He watched as Sol closed the door to his room. He was not looking forward to dinner. His father always chose that time to interrogate him about his operations and his facial scarring. He still hadn't committed to telling them everything.

Later he would regret dreading dinner with his family.


	8. Chapter 8

"Pass the sauce please sis," Garrus said holding out his hand. He had been right, his father had intended to interrogate him, but his mother intervened and dinner was surprisingly pleasant.

"Yeah sure, here," Sol said, grabbing the sauce dish and handing it to Garrus. But before he had a solid grip on the dish, there was a tremendous lurch and the dish was flung from their grip into the indigo carpet. This was followed by more lurches and the sounds of nearby explosions.

Screaming could be heard coming from the level below them as well as the unmistakable hiss of escaping atmosphere. Gunfire followed to silence the screaming.

"My room, now!" Garrus said, sprinting for the door as he pulled the pistol from his shirt. He knew that they'd follow, they'd all seen combat.

Once he had reached the door, he opened it cautiously and stuck his gun out first, scanning the hallway for any sign of trouble. Finding none, he crossed the hallway into his suite. His family was close behind.

Once inside his room, he handed his weapon to his sister who was the only one with recent combat experience and headed straight for his closet. He could still hear gunfire but it was moving away. _Our cruise liner had been within Citadel space but it must have been too close to the terminus systems, _Garrus thought.

Garrus tore open his cabinet and pulled out his armor. Upon seeing it, his sister gasped at the damage but he was beyond caring. He strapped it all on over his clothes and attached his Mantis sniper rifle and assault rifle to his back.

He was very glad that he had packed extra ammunition and weapons. The Phalanx's were ideal for handing to unarmed civilians. They pack a huge punch with limited need for training. But it was a good thing he had three turians to give them to. He handed one to each of his family. His father shot him a look of disapproval but took his without question.

He could see his mother was struggling. She was still ill, and Garrus worried about how he would be able to protect her. She was in no condition to fight.

He was still looking for an answer when he heard screaming from down the hall followed by gunshots and harsh laughter. He could hear batarian and krogan voices moving towards them. He used hand signals to direct his family behind the couch and bed while he crouched a few feet in front of the door. He waited for the krogans to kick open the door before he opened fire with his assault rifle, concentrating all his fire on the krogan's head.

The krogan dropped and Garrus began firing at the one behind him. His shields absorbed the return fire and as he saw the second krogan fall he dove head first through the doorway, rolling and twisting to come up on his knees facing the batarians taking cover on the walls. He killed the first one with a well placed shot in the center of his four eyes and the second he killed by shoving his gun past the man's shields and using the rest of the heatsink's capacity to fire into the man's face.

_The_ _new adapters were well worth the money,_ Garrus thought to himself as he looked down the hallway. To his left where the pirates had come from he could see broken doorways. To his right he saw several corpses in fine clothing scattered all along the length, shot in the back as they tried to flee.

His family left their cover and walked towards him. His mother looked faint, but his sister and father both looked ready for action.

"Dad, you stay here and take care of mom. Sol, you're with me. We have to clear this floor and seal it. Dad's one pistol won't be enough to keep them safe," Garrus said as he walked down the hall with his gun in his hands. He didn't bother to wait for his father to respond. He knew his father understood the situation. They all followed their orders without question.

Garrus motioned for Sol to get behind him as he advanced on the intersections of his hallway and another. Looking around the corner in both directions he signaled for her to follow as he moved around the corner to his left. Sol took up position behind him, covering their rear. They moved through the floor methodically and found no other enemies. Corpses were everywhere however, their belongings looted.

"Alright, let's seal those entrances," Garrus said, pointing at the heavy metal doors that led to the upper floors. There was a console there that he used to hack the security systems. _One advantage to working with AIs_, he thought, _they come up with some amazing hacking protocols._

Garrus used his omnitool to transfer the protocol into the system where he directed it to give him direct access to the security systems from his omnitool. He might need to close or reopen doors in the future.

Once the protocol had finished its job, he sealed all but one door on his level; the door that the group of pirates had used to get there from the lower floors. He walked with his weapon at the ready, ignoring Sol's confused look at how easily he had bypassed the security.

The lower floor was deserted, as were all the adjacent floors. Garrus could still hear gunfire and explosions from nearby and he moved as best he could to its location. As he was about to round a corner to the Atrium of the ship, a human body in armor bearing the markings of the pirate group flew past him. His neck was snapped as he collided hard with the wall.

Garrus rounded the corner slowly. A biotic strong enough to fling a man like that was a force to be reckoned with, even if they were friendly. Careful to appear non-threatening so as not to startle whoever it was, Garrus came into view. What he saw surprised him.

Standing in the middle of a circle of dead pirates was the last person Garrus was expecting but short of having Shepard here, he couldn't think of a single person he'd rather have more. Samara's red armor was stained with the blood of several species, and she was bleeding slightly from a gash on her face.

"Samara! Damn am I glad to see you," Garrus said stretching out his arms in welcome.

"Lieutenant Vakarian, it is good to see a friendly face," Samara said in response. She ejected the thermal clip from her assault rifle and stretched. She noticed Sol standing awkwardly behind Garrus, holding her gun slightly up as if unsure of what to do. "Who is your companion?" she asked.

"This is my sister Solana. I had come on vacation with her and my parents here believe it or not," Garrus responded, trying to subtly tell his sister to lower her gun. The ferocity and ruthlessness of the Justicars was something you had to get used to, alongside the completely serene way in which they did it. Finally she got the hint and lowered her weapon. "Why are you here?" he asked.

"I had been in a confrontation with an Asari slaver two weeks ago. I needed transport to Illium to continue my pursuit," Samara responded.

"Good enough reason I suppose, this is an asari owned vessel," Garrus said. He could tell that Solana was lost but he didn't feel like explaining it to her and they didn't have the time. "Alright, we still need to clear this ship of hostiles. Samara, you're with me. Sol, cover our rear," Garrus said as he advanced along the Atrium towards the area he thought the pirates had docked with.

Garrus noticed the distinct lack of alarms and called his group to a halt. He took a moment to access the security from his omnitool. Intrusion alarms had been hacked by the pirates before they revealed themselves, clever bastards. All communications equipment was disabled and monitoring devices had been as well. Garrus took a moment to reactivate the monitoring devices but he couldn't re-enable the comm. systems from where he was. He'd need to go to the bridge to activate the override.

Accessing the cameras Garrus scanned feeds for hostiles. As he feared, the bridge had been overrun.

_Time for some creative problem solving, _Garrus thought to himself. He knew that the fire alarms would direct the ignorant passengers to the shopping center, the single largest area of the ship. Kiosks would be moved out of the way by automated systems to create a single flat empty area for congregation.

He looked up the ship layout and studied it. He then spent a few minutes creating a single path for passengers to follow. Closing bulkhead doors and activating floor lighting to direct them, he made sure all the passengers on the opposite side of the ship would go exactly where he wanted them to go.

Then he made a similar path for the pirates. Once they had forced their way onboard they had gone directly to the bridge and he closed bulkhead doors that would direct them from there straight to a choke point at a Y-intersection.

He briefly explained the plan to Samara and Solana, and then he activated the fire alarms. They made their way to the middle of the Y-intersection and waited. Before long he could hear the heavy boots of krogan and the lighter boots of humans, batarians, and turians just before he saw them.

"NOW!" he yelled to Samara when they were halfway down the hallway. He opened fire with his sniper rifle on the nearest enemy while Samara let out a biotic shockwave that knocked every one of the pirates off their feet except for the three krogan.

Exposed and in the open with a long stretch of coverless hallway the Krogans went down in seconds. Solana picked off several of the pirates that were on the ground still before taking cover behind the wall. Samara and Garrus killed the remaining pirates while they took disorientated shots from the ground.

Once they were all dead, Garrus ran for the other end of the hallway. He counted the dead as he passed; they were all accounted for. He reached the bridge and activated the comm. terminal.

"Alright, we have to get out of here before reinforcements show up," He said while he activated the override.

"I believe that it is too late," Samara said, looking down at a console to Garrus' right. He could see blips on the LADAR screen that matched the one that was attached to the side of the cruise liner. They were at the very edge of detection range.

"We have to get this thing moving," Garrus said. "How do you fly this damn thing?" At that moment he heard the crying from behind a bulkhead door. He went over to it and opened it to find three of the asari bridge officers. They cowered in fear at the sight of him. It took a moment for him to realize why. Covered in blood and holding a smoking weapon, he didn't think there was any way he could convince them to man their stations, figuratively speaking.

"Samara, I need some help. Get these people on their feet and at their stations. We need to get out of here before those reinforcements get here," he said. He watched as Samara walked over to the officers and convinced them of her identity as a Justicar and a friend. Garrus chose this moment to explain to Solana who she was, "On my mission with Commander Shepard we recruited several specialists. Samara was one of them. She's an Asari Justicar, a member of a monastic group that travels asari space righting wrongs, usually with violence."

"Is she always so tranquil?" Sol asked. Garrus could tell she was still unnerved by Samara's demeanor. Even covered in blood she acted like she was at total peace.

"Yes. You'll get used to it," he responded. Samara had gotten the officers on their feet and to their stations. Their hands were shaking and he could tell they were still extremely rattled. _If they stay like this they could do more harm than good, _he thought to himself.

"Samara, get them to plot an FTL course out of here. I don't care where, just as long as we don't end up in a star," Garrus said. There were many places they could go but he was hoping they would go for the nearest Relay so that they could get to Illium and get rid of the corpses.

"Enemy ships incoming! Goddess please spare me!" the officer in the navigations chair screamed. Garrus could tell that something bad was about to happen just before it did; the officer's hands shook violently as she typed in the coordinates.

"Don't-!" Garrus said just as the asari officer activated the FTL drive and the ship lurched away from the pirates.


	9. Chapter 9

It took a moment for Garrus to take in his surroundings. He was on the floor of a ship's bridge and he had a throbbing headache. As he rolled over onto his back his brain finally reengaged and he remembered where he was.

He stood up quickly, a little too quickly as he had to grasp the chair in front of him to keep from falling down again. He saw Samara and Sol over at the front of the bridge. He looked down at the chair he was holding and saw the asari officer in charge of navigation's face imbedded in the console. Blood trickled through her severed throat into the electronics below.

_Great. Wherever we are, we're stranded until I can get into the captain's override, _Garrus thought to himself as he went to revive Samara and Sol. _First she sends us off to who knows where and doesn't plan a safe deceleration and then she dies and takes the console with her. _The two other asari officers were strapped unconscious in their chairs but his omnitool confirmed that they were alive.

Shaking Samara gently, Garrus finally took a good look at the surroundings. He saw the captain of the ship dead in her chair, shot through the head at point blank range. _The pirates must have forced her to give them control of the ship before they killed her, _Garrus thought. Samara had regained consciousness and Garrus stood, offering her his hand to help her up and steadying her while she regained her balance.

Next he checked on Sol. His omnitool told him she had a concussion, the result of not having shields to lessen the blow. She was alive and stable however so Garrus arranged her body for the best bloodflow and comfort and then walked over to the captain's chair.

He tried to respectfully move the captain's body out of the chair and onto the ground but had limited success. Her head was basically gone, the result of a hand cannon shot to the face, and the blood made her slick and difficult to grasp and she slipped harshly to the ground.

He took a look at the chair's console but it had locked itself down after the unscheduled FTL travel.

"We'll have to find a way to hack that," he said to Samara as he activated his feed of the shopping center. He could see the passengers getting up after the sudden stop. No one seemed to be very hurt but his view was from some ways off and there wasn't a zoom feature on any of the cameras.

"Where are we?" Samara asked him after she had checked on the asari crew members and Sol.

"I'm not sure," Garrus responded. "The navigation officer managed to destroy her console after sending us into the middle of nowhere." He regretted his black statement the instant he finished saying it. The look Samara gave him was one of disapproval.

"I'm sorry, I'm just a little annoyed that things turned out this way. I knew this vacation was going to be bad but I definitely didn't expect this," Garrus said.

"We should check on the passengers to ensure that no one was hurt," Samara said in way of acknowledgement.

"I just did. No one seems injured and our priority is to find out where we are," Garrus said. "You can broadcast a message to the passengers if you want, the comm. station is there." He pointed to the console between the two surviving officers.

"I will do that," Samara responded. She walked over to the console but had to look for the headset which had fallen to the front of the bridge. She inserted the plug and spent a few seconds figuring out the equipment before activating the all-channel.

"Don't panic," She began and Garrus winced slightly at the minimal tact. "Our ship was attacked by pirates on our way to Illium and we were forced to make an unscheduled FTL jump. Please report any injuries to the nearest first aid station."

With that she cut off the broadcast. Garrus could see the passengers begin to panic in his visor and he quickly made his way to the comm. station.

"To all passengers! Sit down and do not move. I will be down to explain the situation myself," Garrus said. He made sure to lock the doors leading out of the shopping center to ensure that they didn't wander off. He also checked his side of the ship to see which floors had been raided. As he looked back down at the communictions console he noticed that external comm. Systems were no longer responding. He assumed that the pirates had destroyed their dishes when they attacked.

He ignored that while he contemplated other survivors. That was a problem he'd solve later.

Only a dozen of the hundred floors had been searched so he activated the fire alarm on them to force the passengers into the shopping center. He unlocked the doors on his family's level so that his father could bring his mother out.

Garrus motioned for Samara to follow him as he left the bridge, clearing the way to the shopping center as he walked. Thankfully there had been few enough people there to avoid the mass panic and the injuries that follow that sort of reaction but he checked the ship for the doctors who operated the medlab just in case. Their implants said they were alive and in the shopping center.

His brisk pace carried him quickly to the second level walkway that overlooked the ground floor of the shopping center where he stood looking down at the people there. Most were in some sort of clothing; either high class or night wear. Many wore their clothes backwards or skewed; an obvious indication of hurried dressing when he had sounded the fire alarm.

"Excuse me! Hey!" Garrus yelled over the commotion of the two hundred or so people gathered. While they quieted briefly he scanned the crowd for his family and the doctors. Then the entire crowd erupted into questions. _Only rich people could afford this cruise, and only rich people were dumb enough to demand answers from a man in damaged body armor with no markings and a weapon in his hand, _Garrus thought to himself. He pointed the Phalanx heavy pistol upwards and fired two shots that drowned out and smothered the crowd.

"Thank you," he began. "As my companion had said, we were attacked by pirates but have escaped and all pirates have been killed. For those of you asari," he paused briefly to look from each asari face to the next before continuing, "My companion behind me is a Justicar. I expect full cooperation from you."

Samara stood up straight and walked a half step forward to better display herself. She gave him a brief look of warning but was willing to follow his lead.

"Now, do any of you have galactic positioning devices?" Garrus said to the crowd. He desperately needed to know where they were but he had no way to find out. He hoped these wealthy people would have what he needed. As he saw hands raise all across the room he smiled to himself.

"Excellent. Do you have it with you?" Garrus asked. As he saw all of the people who had raised their hands shake their heads he continued. "Alright, you," he said pointing at an asari dressed in a silk night gown, "Go get yours from you room. I'll open the doors." Garrus opened the door to the private quarters and watched as she did as she was told. During this time the rest of the passengers arrived, packing the room till it was nearly full.

Ten minutes later she walked slowly back into the room looking confused. Garrus waited patiently while she approached his balcony. Finally she said, "I can't get a reading."

"What?" Garrus said his mind racing. "Are you sure it's working?"

"Yes! I'm not a simpleton that buys cheap trash!" the woman said condescendingly. "I only buy the best!" The other passengers murmured in agreement. They were beginning to form an Us-Against-Them mentality that Garrus thought would be very unhealthy for them.

Samara put a hand on Garrus' shoulder. Garrus took a deep breath before responding, "Does anyone else want to get their GPD?"

Several passengers perked up at the possibility of showing up the asari woman with their superior devices and so left through the door she had gone through to get hers.

Garrus could tell from the way they walked when they returned that they had had the same luck as the first woman. He quickly ran through the possibilities in his head. If no one was getting a signal from the millions of GPD satellites scattered in every settled system in both council space and the terminus systems then that left only one option.

He turned towards Samara, his back facing the confused passengers. He tried to ignore the image of his father looking up at his as he said, "We're in Geth space."

Samara stood up straighter before answering, "There should be no problem. The Geth have proven their benevolence."

"That's true, but you never-"

Garrus' sentence was interrupted by an explosive crash at the front of the ship. He took one look at Samara and ran for the bridge. He ignored the sounds of panic coming from the shopping area.

When he got to the bridge he could see Sol furiously working the comm. station, repeating a message over and over. She paused long enough to see Garrus sprinting into the room. The surviving asari officers were cowering in their seats. They deliriously chanted prayers to see their families, prayers to survive, and prayers for their misdeeds.

"We've lost main thrusters! I have no control of this ship and these two idiots fell apart as soon as they woke up!" Sol said throwing down her headset in disgust. "Comms are out too. I can't even get a LADAR read on them, they hacked our systems."

"They're geth, we don't have much time. Is the pirates' ship still attached to the hull?" Garrus asked quickly.

Sol responded after looking at a surveillance monitor, "Yeah, but just barely. Our FTL flight and deceleration have nearly shaken it off; it's hanging on by a thread. How do you know it's the geth?"

"No time!" Garrus replied, motioning for Samara to follow. He opened the bulkhead doors that led to his room as he made his way for the door. He could hear Sol curse behind him and then she too fell into step. They ran for his room as collisions rocked the vessel. He made sure the doors to the shopping center were sealed. If there was a major hull leak the atmosphere in the shopping center would keep them alive for a while as it circulated.

They reached his room and he ran inside to grab his helmet. He knew that he would need it.

They ran for the breach in the hull where the pirates' ship was attached two floors down. When they arrived he saw that the atmosphere shields had activated. Through the gaping hole he could see the ship.

"Barely attached?" Garrus exclaimed. "The damn thing is floating in the middle of space!" He could see the ship's airlock twenty meters out and drifting further away.

"It must have been knocked loose by the concussions," Sol said. She saw him step back a few feet further into the hallway and take a running stance. "Garrus, you aren't seriously considering jumping that are you?"

Garrus made sure the seal of his helmet was locked before responding, "Of course. That ship is our only chance of staying alive!"

"But what good does it do to use that ship's comms if we're in geth space? No one will hear our message and no one will come to help!" Sol said. She simply couldn't understand how Garrus hoped to do anything by jumping out the side of a ship in the middle of space.

Garrus simply looked at Samara and then planted his foot against the wall. He gave a hard push with it and then ran towards the hole in the hull.

But just as he was about to dive forward towards the pirates' ship's airlock the cruise vessel was rocked by another concussion. Garrus was thrown off balance and was pitched out the side of the ship. His trajectory was taking him out into the empty void of space but it was corrected forcefully. Samara had done her job perfectly and in a few short moments he was inside the airlock. He punched the terminal to seal the door and impatiently waited for the inner door to open.

So far things had gone according to plan. As the door opened he hurried to the pilot's console. As he had predicted, the Geth hadn't scrambled this equipment because there were no life signs on board. He could see the two warships at the front and right of the cruise liner. He opened an open comm. channel.

"Legion, for we are Many," He said. He watched as the geth ships stopped firing and turned towards him. _Moment of truth. Are they Legion's or are they Heretics, _Garrus thought. The anticipation was killing him.

Finally he heard the distinctive stuttering sound he knew all too well from the battlefields of Feros and Ilos. He knew that he had made a miscalculation; that he had trusted the wrong people and as a result the entire cruise liner filled with people was going to be destroyed. He knew he had screwed it up again.

But then the stuttering resolved into words, "Identification codes." The synthesized voice was in turian.

Garrus took a deep breath to calm his tumultuous thoughts before responding, "Lieutenant Garrus Vakarian. Authorization code 7-22-S661944-Beta."

A split second passed before the Geth responded, "Identification confirmed." With that the Geth warships took positions on either side the cruise ship. Garrus looked around at the console. There were messages in the inbox and he downloaded the contents of everything. These pirates would pay for this; there was no doubt in his mind.

"Send me a shuttle for transport," Garrus said aggressively. If these really were Legion's geth, then what the hell were they doing attacking a defenseless and damaged cruise ship? He watched through the open airlock as a geth dropship left from the nearest warship. He could just make out Solana through the hole in the hull of the cruise liner.

_How am I going to explain this one, _he asked himself as he stepped into the dropship. There were no mobile platforms inside the shuttle and it took a moment before Garrus remembered that the shuttle was itself a mobile platform.

"Take me to that hole and standby for further orders," Garrus said. "I want an explanation as to why you attacked this ship." The shuttle took him across the distance to where his sister and Samara were waiting. As the ramp opened up he could see the look of betrayal on his sister's face. He could see her pistol slowly rising before Samara rested her hand on it and forced it down.

The pain Garrus felt would have to wait. He needed to get to the bridge where he could speak with the Geth. But he remembered too late that the external comm. systems were damaged beyond repair. The geth drop ship had already left for its parent warship. He would have to use the internal all-channel and have the geth listen in.

_Oh yeah, this'll be fun,_ he thought darkly as he walked towards the bridge.

Once he had reached the bridge he wrote a message into the comm. station directing the geth to listen in on the all-channel. He needed to be delicate with his wording in order to avoid an issue but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed impossible. He resolved himself to simply speak freely, the opinions of the passengers be damned.

"Alright," he said into the headset as he looked at his sister's furious eyes, "You are going to explain to me exactly why you attacked this ship." Through his visor he could see the passengers stirring.

"You entered our space," the geth responded, scaring the passengers with their synthetic voice.

"Legion," for lack of a better option Garrus decided to apply the name of his squadmate to the rest of his people, "you cannot destroy every ship that enters your space. If you ever wondered why the Galaxy fears you, that's the reason.

"You portray yourself as an enemy by attacking passenger liners," he continued. "You need to distinguish between the people that are threats and those that aren't." He hoped his logic would translate properly but he knew too little about the Geth to be sure.

"We cannot distinguish between friend and foe," the Geth responded. Garrus was shocked, it wasn't the response he was expecting.

"Why not?" he asked. "It should be easy to detect weaponry!"

"We lack sufficient LADAR silhouette profiles," the Geth replied. This chilled Garrus to the bone. His talk with Legion aboard the Normandy before he left now had new context.

Quietly he said, "Contact our mutual friend. Tell them I said to give you the profiles and that it was a top priority." He rested his hands on the chair in front of the comm. station and closed his eyes.

_This whole thing could have been avoided if I had just helped Legion before I left, _Garrus thought to himself. Over the headset he said, "Legion, please restore power and send over platforms to repair our hull and communications satellites. We will also need to hack into the captain's terminal in order to maneuver the ship on our own. Please send a platform over for that." With that he cut the channel and turned to face his sister.

His initial impression of the look she gave him was of confusion. The betrayal had left her eyes and was replaced by the confusion of believing someone close to you had turned on you and everyone else only to be presented with information that contradicted that.

"Sol, I'm going to tell you everything. I'm going to tell you what I was doing when I was hurt, I'm going to tell you what I did before mom got her new treatment, and I'm going to tell you everything I know about the Reapers and the species' Shepard has gathered to fight them," Garrus said looking his sister in the eye, "Some of it will sound crazy, some of it will make me look crazy, but I need you to understand that it's all true."

Garrus spent the hours it took for the mobile platforms to repair their systems explaining everything to his sister. He explained his actions on Omega, he explained recruiting the many specialists for the mission against the Collectors, he explained all the intricacies of preparing for that mission, he explained the mission itself in detail, how Shepard destroyed the base instead of giving it to Cerberus and the exact location of the base itself, and he explained his many missions with Shepard sabotaging Cerberus afterwards.

At the end of it all, Solana looked at him as though overwhelmed. She turned to face Samara, who she saw in a new light, and asked, "Is all that true? The Reapers, the Collectors, everything? The Collectors were really behind the disappearance of those colonists?"

Samara replied solemnly, "I cannot speak for your brother's actions on Omega but the rest of it is true. Your brother is one of the most honorable men I have met in many centuries. I believe that he would fight with every fiber of his being to root out injustice and so I do not find his explanation of events on Omega is in any way exaggerated. He has proven to me over the course of our missions together that he is fully able to defend the Galaxy against the Reapers."

Garrus listened as Samara described him. He felt humbled and proud at the same time by how she viewed him and he came to the conclusion that he had been right. The Galaxy needed him to step up and do whatever he needed to do. There was no time for second guessing, he needed to be decisive. As Samara finished speaking he looked into his sister's eyes and saw a small sliver of belief. _It's a start,_ he thought to himself.

"What do I tell mom and dad?" Sol asked him. He could see that she hoped he might have a way to convince them.

"Whatever you want Sol. I've been trying all vacation to decide what to tell them and in the end it doesn't matter," Garrus said. "Shepard has enough influence that it doesn't matter anymore what dad says to his buddies at C-Sec. They could convince the council he was a traitor and it wouldn't matter." He could tell that this wasn't the answer his sister was looking for.

"In the end Sol, the council already knows about Shepard's operations. He's been very open with them. You can tell them whatever you want to tell them, whatever you think they will believe, whatever you believe. It doesn't matter because we will be saving you all whether you like it or not," Garrus said with a smile to reassure his sister. He didn't know if it took, but between himself and Samara he thought that maybe he had convinced her. He thought he might have seen a bit of pride in her face before it was replaced by resolve.

"Vakarian Lieutenant, repairs are complete. Access to navigation restored," the mobile platform at the captain's chair said. "We are prepared to escort you to the border of our space."

"Good, Legion," Garrus said as he sat in the blood stained captain's chair and punched in navigational instructions. "Let's get these passengers to Illium." His sister stood behind his chair while Samara stood at his left. The ship began to move and pick up speed and the two warships were on either side of it. Garrus leaned back in his chair and activated his feed of the shopping center. He flipped through cameras until he could clearly see his father. His father stared up at the camera with anger.

Garrus knew that he'd try and kill him if he had a chance. He hadn't listened to any of the conversation between Garrus and the geth.

He knew his father thought he was a traitor but he didn't care. Too many lives were at stake to care about the opinion of one man.


	10. Chapter 10

Sol and Samara were down with the other passengers trying to calm everyone down. The trip to the edge of Geth space was thankfully uneventful. Garrus had stayed in the bridge and navigated to keep his mind off of how FUBAR his "family vacation" had turned out. Of all the human expressions he had learned from Shepard and his crews, FUBAR was by far his favorite.

What should have been a relaxing R&R with some much needed father-son bonding turned out to produce the opposite result. He now couldn't be in the same room with his father for fear of causing a problem and Samara's influence could only keep so much tension in check.

He occupied himself by sifting through the pirates' data. Most of it was communications between the small boarding craft and a larger vessel that had a name in Batarian that Garrus couldn't pronounce. There were occasional mentions of an attack using code words that made Garrus a little suspicious. They had just reached the edge of Geth space and the friendly warships were turning around when Garrus asked over the radio, "Legion, can you do a search for me?"

It took a moment for the ships to respond, "Of what?"

"I need to know what these terms are from, I think they're code words for an attack," Garrus replied.

"Relay the phrases," the geth replied. After Garrus had transmitted the batarian phrases it took a good four minutes for the warships to respond. "They are the names of Batarian victories during planet based wars. The battles referenced are of surprise attacks on fortresses from before the Batarians developed mass effect field based weaponry."

"What kind of fortresses?" Garrus asked. This didn't sound good.

"Fortresses where queens held dominion. The Batarian Caste system during the wars in question did not support female rulership," The geth responded.

"I want you to monitor galactic communications for these code words. If they pop up again let me know," Garrus said. "Vakarian out."

He sat wondering what this attack could be and who it would be against. He went over the messages again to see if he could glean any more information from them. It seemed to him that this attack would be fairly large scale, but the destination was never specified.

He pushed it out of his mind however as he calculated their FTL jump. He still didn't know how they had ended up in geth space in one jump but maybe some automated protocol initiated the procedures for a mass relay jump while in FTL and executed them just before the Mass Relay.

However it happened, he made sure it didn't happen again by checking and rechecking the coordinates for the nearest Relay. He then engaged the FTL drive and started checking the other systems. Legion's people had gotten comms back up and had rerouted all control of navigation to the newly jail broken captain's chair.

He sat back into the chair and relaxed into the soft blood soaked cushions. They weren't imported silk cushions, but they were enough for his exhausted body to fall asleep.

His dreams were tumultuous, with images of batarians with swords and the human's plate armor charging up a hill towards a stone castle. They shifted in and out until their violence roused him from sleep.

He needed to find out what this attack was. He looked at the astrogation chart to see where they were. After seeing that they were nearly to the Relay and within civilized space he pulled the ship out of FTL, gently this time.

He set up a link with the security codes Shepard had given him before he left. The note in the bank account had said simply "For intel" and Garrus had a feeling he knew what that meant. The line took a moment to resolve and the security systems to handshake before he heard the distorted voice of the Shadow Broker.

"What is it Archangel," Liara said, completely unrecognizable and with artificial toughness. He knew she was still getting used to being the Shadow Broker.

"I need information on these phrases," he said, uploading them through the secure channel. "Specifically I need to know all the patterns of conversations when these words are used. There's an attack planned and I need to know where."

He waited while Liara looked up the information. Knowing her she would have noticed the suspicious uses of these words and researched them. No messages can evade the Shadow Broker for long.

Finally she came back on the line and said in her synthesized voice, "There is a correlation between these phrases and mention of a queen. Several messages infer biological traits of the Asari. A gathering place in the Hourglass Nebula is briefly mentioned in a recent message. Given the nature of these reports and the proximity to the Omega Nebula I have come to the conclusion that these messages refer to Aria T'Loak, the Pirate Queen of Omega."

"Alright. I have orders from our mutual friend to keep an eye out for ways to help Aria and this may be it," Garrus said. "Thank you Shadow Broker, your funds will be transferred at my earliest convenience." He knew that despite all the precautions Liara had made to secure transmission there was only one way to protect against eavesdropping and that was to use quantum entanglement communicators like the Normandy was equipped with. The best way to protect against eavesdropping with the resources they had was to act.

He had two messages to send before they reached the Relay. If this was a large scale invasion of the Omega station then they would need a fleet to protect it. Aria needed to know at least to some degree what would happen to keep her from losing influence among her "subjects".

He composed a short text message that he sent to Aria. The entire contents were only two words: play along. He knew she would be smart enough to figure out the rest on her own and this kept things vague enough to avoid tipping off her enemy, whoever they were.

Given the nature of Omega, Garrus guessed that they were probably after the power of the place. It was the defacto capital of the Terminus systems and Aria had been in power a long time. But it was irrelevant in the end; he just needed to know how to stop it.

His second message was more detailed. It explained the situation in detail and gave instructions for the counter offensive. The Geth were to amass a small fleet of ships in the Perseus Veil and then proceed to the Omega Nebula where they would follow Aria's orders without question for the duration of the battle.

He had no personal love for Aria but he recognized her value as an ally in the fight against the Reapers. It was better to deal with a ruthless business woman like her than a reckless pirate. He sent his finished message through several proxy satellites to reduce the risk of detection and then prepared for the Relay jump that would take them to Illium.

Samara entered as they were approaching the Relay. "Anything of consequence?" she asked. He knew she was referring to the early exit from FTL.

"Not much," he said, confident that his maneuvers would work.


	11. Epilogue

Upon arriving in the Omega Nebula Shepard could see the hulks of hundreds of destroyed ships. There were one or two Geth vessels, which immediately set off red flags in his head.

"Legion!" he yelled into the intercom. He needed to know why it looked like there had been a battle between the Geth and some pirates.

"Shepard Commander?" Legion replied from the AI core.

"Why are there geth warships in the Omega Nebula?" Shepard asked. His operation had been such a success on Bekenstein yet here it seemed like all his plans were falling apart.

"Vakarian Lieutenant directed us to protect Omega station from a pirate assault," Legion said after he had interfaced with the relevant runtimes.

This put Shepard more at ease. If Garrus had ordered it then there must have been a good reason. He was also pleased that his vacation idea had been a success. The fact that Garrus took the initiative to order the geth to protect the station meant he was willing and able to operate on his own.

He watched out of the Normandy's front windows as EDI navigated through the debris and docked with the station.

He made his way quickly to Afterlife, walking over several corpses on his way there. He walked right past the guards at the front and went through the club and up the stairs to see Aria sitting at her couch drinking from a glass of wine with a batarian corpse at her feet.

She watched him approach and sit to her right before she said, "That Talon attack was apparently not an isolated incident." Her guards were nowhere to be seen and the club was completely empty. She seemed able to speak freely.

"I heard you had a bit of trouble," Shepard said. He looked around and saw bullet holes all over the room. The screens that usually displayed the dancers in the center had been broken up and down the length of them.

"I would have, but my Geth allies arrived in time to thwart the attack," she said almost playfully. She seemed to be enjoying the idea that her station thought she controlled the geth.

"They're very helpful once you get to know them," Shepard said, playing along with her mood.

Aria smiled for the second time to Shepard and said, "So how's our friend Leng?"

Shepard could tell she was itching to vent her adrenaline on him. "He's locked up on the Normandy. I hope you didn't have any plans for his hands." He smiled at Aria's raised eyebrow.

"Feel free to bring him here at any time. I plan to make an example of how I deal with groups that lie to me," Aria said. Shepard could tell he was dismissed and he got up to retrieve Leng.

Before he had begun to descend the stairs he turned and said, "Make sure to include me in that public service announcement." He left feeling optimistic about their relationship.

When he had offered to catch Leng they had been allies. He had a feeling that now, after Garrus' timely action, they were friends.

Most of the crew that were returning had been picked up. The vast majority had opted to stay with their families instead of continue in Shepard's service. After their abduction by the Collectors many felt that traveling with Shepard if you weren't some sort of superhero was hazardous to your health. Certain crew remained like Ken Donnelly and Gabby Daniels as well as their cook Mess Sergeant Gardner and Joker. Kelly had left; the Collector abduction had hit her harder than anyone on the crew.

_I guess when they say you have to be slightly crazy to be a psychologist they aren't kidding, _Shepard thought to himself as he made his way back into the CIC from his private quarters. Most of his squad was back, and they were just arriving on Illium to pick up Garrus.

"Commander, there is a message for you from Garrus," EDI said.

"Thank you EDI," Shepard replied as he moved to his terminal. He read the message with a frown growing across his face. It seemed everything had not gone according to plan.

Once they had docked at the port that Garrus had specified Shepard walked over to the airlock and opened the door to find Garrus in full body armor with his helmet under one arm and his bag over his shoulder.

"Hey Garrus," Shepard began. "Things not go so well with your father?" He stepped out of the way to allow Garrus to pass him and enter the Normandy.

"Eh, it went alright for the first three weeks of the trip. At least," Garrus paused for a moment before continuing as the two of the walked towards the CIC, "as well as I was expecting. Then we got attacked by pirates and I ran into Samara and things kind of escalated from there." He set his bag down in the elevator as Shepard selected level three and the doors closed.

"I heard about what you did for Aria," Shepard said to try and distract Garrus. "I really appreciate it and your plan worked flawlessly. Aria is now feared by all of the Terminus Systems and is committed to helping us."

"That's good. It's so hard to get accurate information from the news feeds on Illium, they always interrupt with ads trying to sell you 'Scalp adjustments' or that terrible movie _Blasto: the Jellyfish Stings_," Garrus said as the elevator reached level three and they stepped out. "I had wondered how that'd turned out."

Shepard noticed how Garrus' walk was more confident and how his shoulders were set. He knew right then that even though he may not have reconciled with his father, he had abandoned the self-doubt.

They stopped in the main battery and Garrus rested his rifles against the wall. Shepard looked in his eye before saying, "It's good to have you back Garrus. Whenever you're settled, I have a mission for you."

**THE END**


End file.
